Script Files
He In Her Skin
He in Her Skin is an emotionally charged, magical realism drama about gender, identity, and love.
Set against the backdrop of California’s Proposition 8, the story follows Apollo and Juan Pablo, a same-sex couple longing for acceptance in a society that refuses to recognize their love. Their friend Frida, who has spent her life in an unaligned body, is equally desperate for transformation. When they encounter an ancient Amazonian plant capable of swapping souls, they seize the opportunity.
Overnight, Apollo finds himself trapped in Frida’s female body, while Frida, now male, experiences the liberation of masculinity. What begins as an experiment in identity soon becomes an intimate, painful, and hilarious journey of self-discovery.
Apollo struggles to maintain his relationship with Juan Pablo, whose attraction shifts, forcing them both to question the boundaries of love and gender. Meanwhile, Frida, now accepted as a man, realizes that true self-worth comes from within—not from the validation of others.
As they wrestle with love, loss, and new power dynamics, they face a choice: remain in their new lives or return to their past selves, regardless of the consequences.
With stunning visuals, poetic dialogue, and a blend of sensuality, humor, and heartache, He in Her Skin explores what it means to be truly seen—and whether love can transcend the physical.
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Froylán CabutoWriter
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Project Type:Screenplay
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Number of Pages:122
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Froylán Cabuto is a Mexican-born writer, director, poet, and performer whose work traverses the boundaries of language, identity, and body. Originally from Nayarit, Mexico, his multidisciplinary voice emerges through theatre, film, and literature—each form shaped by a deep commitment to authenticity and social truth. He is the recipient of the Gabriela Mistral Prize for Literary Excellence, the John & Suanne Roueche Excellence Award, the Ignacio Galbis Prize for Best Publication from Citadel University, and the Swiss Cultural Programme’s Best Film Award.
His acclaimed film Soy Soldado (Iraq) was featured at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival, and received the Cinema of Conscience Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival, as well as the Silver Palm Award from the Mexico International Film Festival. His past projects—such as Muted Voices, 116 Seconds, Tormenta, and Ruby—probe political and spiritual questions with the tools of poetic realism, hybrid performance, and fierce human vulnerability.
Froylán’s theatre work includes solo and ensemble pieces that challenge heteronormative violence and sacred memory—among them Ave María, performed in the tradition of Grotowski’s “poor theatre,” and Tormenta Omnia, a haunting exploration of identity through the surrealist lens of Gronk Nicandro.
He currently serves as a full-time professor at Cerritos College in Los Angeles, where he teaches Spanish, literature, and cultural studies. In every classroom, performance, and script, Froylán seeks to bridge body and voice, memory and transformation.
He In Her Skin is not just a story—it is a reckoning. A poetic, theatrical, and spiritual interrogation of what it means to inhabit a body that does not match the truth of your soul.
This play was born from my lived experience as a queer Mexican artist and educator, witnessing how love and identity are often policed, regulated, or erased—whether by the state, the church, or the family. Set against the backdrop of California’s Proposition 8 era, the play uses magical realism and body-swapping as a metaphor for gender euphoria, for longing, and ultimately, for reclamation.
The journey of Apollo and Frida—two queer lovers who literally wake up in each other’s skin—is not about disguise, but revelation. It’s a trans-temporal ritual, where ancestral knowledge and indigenous mysticism challenge Western ideas of gender, power, and the soul’s permanence.
As a filmmaker, poet, and theatermaker, I’m deeply interested in how stagecraft can mirror transformation. In this piece, I wanted to merge the political with the mythical, the intimate with the mythic. The Old Woman is not a fairy godmother; she is an echo of the Earth itself, offering what institutions refuse: the possibility to be whole.
This story belongs to every queer person who has ever looked in the mirror and asked, “What if my body aligned with my truth?” It belongs to every immigrant who’s had to shapeshift to survive. And it belongs to every lover who’s risked everything to be seen.
Thank you for considering He In Her Skin. I offer it not as a resolution—but as a prayer.
With respect and corazón,
Froylán Cabuto
Los Angeles, California